Events

With commentary track

The owner of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, and more importantly, of Wirtz Beverages, won a case against the people of Illinois today: An appellate court tossed out Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature $31 billion construction program, widespread plans for video poker and higher taxes on candy and booze, declaring Wednesday in a ruling that they were unconstitutional. The suit was brought by Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, who runs a large liquor empire and opposed the liquor tax hikes included in the...

Monday I cabbed out to the Gorilla Tango Theater near Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood for Chris Conley's and Kevin Sheehan's one-act play The Last Word. I loved it. I won't give anything away—at 30 minutes, any useful summary would spoil it—except to say that Sheehan and Conley have created an intriguing capsule of a world on GTT's tiny stage. Becky Blomgren (Grace) brought her character to life with the right blend of vulnerability and integrity it required. The character has an odd trait that her...

NPR put listener comments about the State of the Union address through a word-cloud generator and came up with this: They explain: Why is "salmon" so big? As The Two-Way explains, NPR's Facebook followers were referring to one of the night's humorous moments — when the president joked about the complicated and convoluted way the government regulates salmon. "The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater,"...

As the President prepares for tonight's address to Congress, we might reflect on a small but significant trend in the past three months:

After yesterday's appellate court ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to take the case immediately, but enjoined the Chicago Board of Elections from printing ballots without Emanuel's name on them: "The Court is taking the case on the briefs filed by the parties in the appellate court," the order said. "No additional briefs will be filed in the Supreme Court. Oral argument will not be entertained." Chicago election officials said about 300,000 ballots without Emanuel's name on them had been...